(Credit: Freescale) - At last year’s Freescale Technology Forum, I demo’ed a photo booth built using Freescale devices. Using i.MX 6Quad applications processor, a four-photo cycle took about 50 seconds to complete, from the click of the snap button to the generation of all the composite images. This cycle time is almost comparable to the 45-second cycle time I’ve seen for a commercial photo booth running Microsoft Windows and canned photo booth software on a big old PC. Not bad for an “embedded” applications processor!

Here is one of the obligatory test shots I took while setting it up:

Click here to see all the rest…

The booth consisted of:

• A frame built from 1-inch diameter electrical conduit (EMT) and carport/canopy fittings
  
  
  

• A black shell and white interior sewn from large tablecloths (a relatively inexpensive source of very large pieces of material)
  
  
  

• A Compulab Utilite Pro (i.MX6Q+1GB RAM) running Linux inside the booth
  
  
  

• a FRDM-KL25Z, a custom built shield, and 52mm arcade buttons programmed as a USB keyboard
  
  
  

• A Python script and open source software to take the photo, composite them, and then share via the network
• A Wandboard (i.MX6D+1GB RAM) running Android outside the booth that played a slide show of all the photo sets
  
  
  
  

• A Nikon D90 DSLR, a 24mm lens, and two photographic strobes

It took three hours to set it up on the floor, largely because I’d completely disassembled the conduit frame and unplugged every cable before transporting it.

There was no capability to print photos at FTF – printing didn’t come until about 3 months later.

In my next posts, I’ll share details and design considerations in building an open-air photo booth kiosk for Freescale Technology Forum 2015.

David DiCarlo is a hardware applications engineer for Freescale i.MX applications processors.

- David DiCarlo is a hardware applications engineer for Freescale i.MX applications processors. -